Salted Lime Sherbet {Margarita Ice Cream}

This delicious Salted Lime Sherbet made an appearance in my Hibiscus Strawberry Margarita Ice Cream Float earlier this week, but here’s that Margarita Ice Cream in all it’s glory, because it deserves its own post! This lime sherbet is tangy, salty, creamy and refreshing, and super easy to make! It’s got all the flavours of a classic margarita, (optionally) MINUS the alcohol, so even kids can enjoy this all summer year long!

So I’m just sitting here at my laptop, having eaten a bowl of this Salted Lime Sherbet, and I’m at a loss for words. This just might be the biggest flavour party in town, and it’s all happening in my mouth baby! Unabashedly refreshing, salty, sweet, creamy and most of all tangy, especially tangy, this Salted Lime Sherbet is just SO good, if I say so myself. It’s a party alright, and you’re cordially invited.

I’ve been eating lime sherbet for years, but adding salt is a new habit. I’m not really sure why I never thought of it before. After all, I love drinking margarita, and before that, long before I turned 18 (legal drinking age where I grew up, yay!), I loved drinking lime juice drinks. Chilled lime juice drinks are almost unnaturally popular in Sri Lanka, where limes are readily available any time of the year, and the best lime juice drinks always had a hint of salt. Lime juice was my go-to beverage as a kid whenever I went to a restaurant there, not sodas. And it’s still my favourite pick-me-up drink when I’m feeling unwell. The salt has this uncanny ability to enhance the sweetness and all the other flavours of lime juice and also dulls the sourness and tanginess. But if you do decide that you don’t want to make this Salted Lime Sherbet, salted, I’d still recommend reducing the salt to 1/4 tsp, so that it’s not actually salted, but there’s still a hint of it to intensify the flavour profile of this lime sherbet.

So why am I also calling it a Margarita Ice Cream? Because it’s got all the flavour of a traditional margarita, MINUS the alcohol. But there’s a quick fix for that of course – just pour a shot of tequila and a splash of soda (limeade, lemonade or club soda) over a scoop of this delicious salted lime sherbet!

OR

Add a scoop of sherbet with a shot of tequila (or two – who am I to judge?), and stir or blend to mix the tequila and sherbet together (to melt the sherbet) and drink! That way you get a delicious creamy margarita!

However you decide to eat it though, I guarantee you’re going to love this margarita ice cream. It’s super tangy, refreshing, creamy, with a lovely saltiness and the perfect amount of sweetness. If a sherbet could ever make you long for summer, a beach, and the sun on your back, then this is the one to do it.

And remember, sherbets harden a little more than ice cream. So while it tastes smooth and creamy, you need to let it soften a little before you can form smooth scoops.

There are a variety of frozen desserts out there – ice cream, gelato, sorbet, sherbet, granita, frozen slushies etc. Here’s a very brief overview of each.

Ice cream – Usually made with a custard that’s combined with heavy cream and then churned to perfection. The richness of ice cream depends on how many eggs (or egg yolks) are added to the custard base. The more egg yolks you add, the richer it is. And of course the amount of cream that’s added makes a difference too. Usually the ratio is 1:2 of milk to cream. The richer ice cream use up to 6 egg yolks per cup of milks, but I prefer about 3-4 egg yolks per cup of milk (or sometimes half and half).

Gelato – I love gelato! Usually slightly denser than ice cream because it’s churned more slowly and has less air incorporated into it. Ice cream makers are different compared to gelato makers because of the churning speed. Also gelato has less cream. In fact the ratio is usually the opposite of ice cream, 1:2 of cream to milk.

Sorbet – This is when you have a churned frozen dessert with NO dairy. The base is usually fruit (although you can make something like chocolate sorbet by mixing chocolate and water and then churning it), sugar and water. Perfect for those who can’t eat dairy. Some sorbet recipes include egg white in ’em, because beaten egg whites can create a lighter sorbet. You can also replicate this (to an extent) without using egg whites, by adding soda instead of water. It’s not the same, but you’ll still end up with a sorbet that’s lighter in texture.

Sherbet – Like this salted lime sherbet that I’ve shared here. Includes dairy (like milk), but NO eggs. One could argue that Philadelphia-style ice cream is a form of sherbet because it doesn’t contain eggs, but I’d disagree. I think sherbet is less creamy than that, because you don’t add nearly the same amount of cream.

Granita and Frozen Slushies – like this red wine granita that I made recently. These are like sorbets, but even easier to make! Granita requires the base to be completely frozen and the flaked with a fork to create icy flakes – as opposed to fine, smooth ice crystals that you get with churned sorbets. Slushie is when either a granita or a sorbet is half frozen, so that you can either eat with a spoon or sip it through a straw.

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Hi Dini! This looks totally refreshing, i’m definitely going to give it a go! But before I do I want to clarify that the “small limes” that you used were not key limes. I make a lot of key lime pie so I usually have them on hand, however if you use regular limes i’ll have to run out and grab them!

Hi Megan! Thank you so much 🙂 I did use regular limes for this recipe (though they were smaller than some other limes I’ve used). You can absolutely use key limes instead of regular limes for this recipe – I think it would be absolutely wonderful with the taste of key limes! 🙂

Hi Shanna! Thank you for pointing that out! The salt is added along with the sugar to make sure it dissolves with the milk before being churned. And the mix is churned in the same way as you would ice cream in an ice cream maker 🙂 I filled the churner the same point as I would with Ice cream Custard, just the chilled mix. And just like ice cream, it may require a few hours to set properly in the freezer after being churned. I hope that helps! Very excited that you are trying this and I would love to know how it came out! 🙂 xo Dini

Wow Dini! I am all over this recipe! I have plans to buy an ice-cream machine this summer and I just can’t wait to try this recipe!! I have bookmarked it and this will be the first recipe that I make for sure, as I am head over heels for lime! 😀

When I was just freshly 21 and first going to bars I used to order margaritas with NO SALT! I’m so glad a bartender friend showed me the error of my ways because lime and salt is such a natural combo. This sherbet looks divine! I don’t own an ice cream maker so I’m glad you included a way to make it without one. I’m gonna give it a shot on my next lazy day at home 🙂

This sounds so refreshing and delicious! I make a really lovely simple lime ice cream which is just a mixture of lime juice and zest, cream and condensed milk, but yours sounds like it would be much more zingy and refreshing; I like the idea of mixing it with tequila as well! 😛

Thank you Hannah! 🙂 This has a slightly different texture than ice cream, because it doesn’t have as much fat content or air whipped into it as ice cream, and definitely packs more zing! 😀 I hope you get to try it soon too especially with Tequila :p hahaha!!

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About The Flavor Bender

Hi! I'm Dini, a third culture kid by upbringing and a food-geek by nature. I was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in New Zealand and lived in Australia, and then the US, before moving to Canada in 2019! My food is a reflection of those amazing experiences! Read More…